


More Like Him

by SummerFrost



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, But also, Communication, Complicated Relationships, Consensual Infidelity, Destructive Sex, Dishonesty, Explicit Discussions of Suicide, Forgiveness, Hyperbolic Mentions of Suicide, Infidelity, Jealousy, Lack of Communication, M/M, Miscommunication, Passive-aggression, Revenge Sex, canon-typical alcohol use, so much passive-aggression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 16:04:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9190919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerFrost/pseuds/SummerFrost
Summary: Mistakes Kent Parson has made:1. Sleeping with Jack Zimmermann after the Falconers play the Aces in Vegas.2. Looking Eric Bittle in the eye the next time Jack is fucking him.3. Opening his hotel room door and finding Bitty on the other side.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Calypso_Mary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calypso_Mary/gifts).



> Soo I originally came up with this premise as a prompt for the PB&J Epifest! When no one claimed it, I decided to write it for Wendy since she really liked the idea <3 Merry...happy...new year?
> 
> Thanks to shipped-goldstandard and omgpb&j for beta-ing for me! <3
> 
> Title from More Like Her by Miranda Lambert (also the original inspiration for the fic)!

**_Zimms (3:52 pm):_ ** _Do you want to get dinner after the game?_

Kent frowns down at his phone. If Jack were a normal ex-boyfriend, Kent’d assume a text like this was meant to throw him off his game or something. Get in his head, fuck him up a little. But Jack Zimmermann doesn’t have a dirty bone in his stupid beautiful body, the fucker. So—he really just wants dinner. Because— _why?_ He misses Kent, or something?

No, Kent’s not gonna let himself think like that anymore, not after—well, pick a fucking card, to be honest. He has a post-game routine with the guys—people who care about him, like, for real apparently—and he’s not gonna let Jack Zimmermann get in the way of that because _now_ is the convenient time to rebuild bridges, or some fucking shit like that.

Except he absolutely is.

 **_Kent (4:01 pm):_ ** _Duh. Loser buys_

 **_Zimms (4:03 pm):_ ** _Haha. Okay Kenny :-)_

A fucking emoji. It’s days like this Kent wishes he still drank.

 

~*~

 

The game is objectively less of a disaster than when they played the Falconers at Providence back in October, considering no one crashes into a net this time, but Kent plays like shit and the whole team feels it. Swoops shoots him concerned looks whenever he hits the bench and Kent shakes his head, teeth biting at his lip.

Angry, bitter, heartbroken: that shit, Kent can deal with. When Jack overdosed and cut Kent out of his life like _he_ was the one who poured a bottle of vodka down Jack’s throat, Kent barricaded himself in his hotel room and cried for three days. And then he went to Vegas and won a Stanley Cup.

But this—looking over at Jack and finding a stupid soft little smile on his face, trying to smother the flicker of hope in his stomach like—like Jack might _want_ him again, or at least want him some way—any way—Jesus, he’ll take anything because yeah, he’s still that fucking pathetic after all these years— _this_ Kent can’t do.

The Aces lose—just by one point, because contrary to popular belief it’s not like Kent’s the only one on the team who can hold a hockey stick, fuck you very much. But they lose, and the worst part is that no one really seems to care about the loss. His friends just crowd around him and try to find out if he’s okay, like the upstanding assholes they are.

“Did Zimmermann say something to you?” Swoops hounds after the press have cleared out, “Because I swear to fuck, I’ll deck the guy right now.”

Kent snaps, “That’s called _assault.”_

“Yeah,” Fish agrees, and Kent’s about to sigh with relief when he adds, “But they play Kings on Tuesday, yes? I have guy. Is just hockey, on the ice.”

“No, okay, it’s not—”

“What? It wasn’t about hockey?” Swoops cuts in, eyes glinting sharply, “You’re right. _Nothing_ is just hockey with him and maybe it’s time you—”

“Everything’s hockey, right Kenny?”

Everyone freezes and turns slowly, like when a gun’s just been cocked in a movie. Jack is standing at the dressing room entrance in his game day suit, his duffel bag slung around his—very broad, fuck—shoulders.

 

_“You don’t care about anything like you care about hockey.” Kent isn’t sure why he says it. He’s seventeen and angry all the time and Zimms always feels too far away even when they kiss._

_Jack laughs. He won’t be laughing much, pretty soon—but Kent doesn’t know that yet. He brushes a cowlick away from Kent’s forehead. “But Kenny,” he says softly, “You_ are _hockey.”_

_It’s the closest Jack will ever come to saying he loves him._

 

Kent stares at Jack blankly. His mouth might be hanging open, a little. Jack smirks—since when does he _smirk?_ —and asks, “Are you ready to go?”

“Um, yeah—just—one second,” Kent splutters, tossing the last of his gear into his bag and scrambling to throw it over his shoulder.

He stands, hurrying to meet Jack at the door, and Swoops hisses, “You fucker,” from behind him. He’s not sure which one of them it’s directed at. 

Once they’re outside, Kent offers, “I can, uh—I can drive, if you want?”

Jack checks his phone and smiles at something on the screen, typing out a quick reply. “Sure, that works. Can we drop my bag off at the hotel, though?”

“Yeah, just throw the address up on my GPS,” Kent says, and unlocks his car.

Jack tosses his bag in the back. “Alright. Did you have a place in mind for dinner?”

“Um, yeah. D’you still like steak?” Kent asks, and winces. _‘Do you still like steak?’_ He parrots at himself, only a little hysterically. _He’s a professional hockey player. Of course he likes steak. Pull yourself together, Parson._

Jack looks up from his phone. “That sounds great,” he says, and punches Kent lightly on the arm. “Let’s get going, eh?” He’s still smiling and his eyes are bright and twinkling like they haven’t been since—maybe ever.

Kent does not pull himself together.

 

~*~

 

The steakhouse Kent takes them to is his favorite. The staff know him and manage to find a table in the back for them, and while Jack’s presence turns some heads, Kent is a normal enough sight that no one asks for autographs or does anything particularly embarrassing.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” the server asks, a woman Kent has met before, named Tracy.

Jack hums thoughtfully, thumbing through the menu. “Could we get—hm—a bottle of your house red?”

Kent, a little alarmed, hastily cuts in, “Um, I’m not—I won’t drink any.”

“Oh.” Jack looks over apologetically, eyes widened, and amends, “Ah—just a glass, then, sorry.”

Tracy smiles knowingly at Kent when he orders a Coke and bustles off. Silently questioning, Jack turns to Kent with a raised eyebrow.

“I, uh—,” Kent says, “I didn’t know you still drank.”

“Ah, sometimes.” Jack shrugs, still reading the menu. There’s an awkward pause, and then he prompts, “Do you—?”

Kent says quickly, “I don’t. Um, not since—it’s been like, a little over a year?”

If Jack counts back and realizes that ‘a little over a year’ means ‘since that party I crashed where I smashed whatever was left of our relationship to pieces,’ he doesn’t show it. Which is nice of him and all.

Tracy comes back with their drinks and takes their dinner orders. They bicker good-naturedly over the appetizer selection until, exasperated and feeling a little too much like a teenager wrestling for the last chicken tender, Kent suggests they just fucking order both. It’s not like he can’t afford the bill, anyway.

After Tracy heads away again, Kent grips the edge of the tablecloth in his hands, twisting the fabric together in a feeble attempt at comfort. Then he blurts, “Why’re we here?”

The playful glint vanishes from Jack’s eyes, which flick between his lap and Kent’s face. “I, um—I hoped we could…talk. I think we both know we owe each other a lot of apologies, and—I miss you, Kenny.”

 _You always say that._ Kent can still hear the sneer in Jack’s voice, feel the tear stains on his cheeks. He’s not proud of how long it takes to compose himself. Finally, he quietly answers, “I miss you too, Zimms. You know that. I just—,” his voice cracks and he clenches the tablecloth tighter, “Why now?”

“I don’t know,” Jack admits with a laugh, “I guess—I’ve been thinking more, about what’s important to me. I don’t think I let myself—you were my best friend.”

Kent looks up and ignores the sharp pain in his stomach. “That’s what you want back?”

Jack blinks, tilts his head a little to the side like a puppy. A gorgeous, piercingly blue-eyed puppy Kent is still helplessly in love with and—okay, no, that analogy’s getting a little weird.

“Yeah,” Jack says, slowly but fondly, like Kent is a little stupid but he doesn’t mind. “Of course.”

And—no, this is fine. This is _better._ Kent lets go of the tablecloth so he can dig his fingernails into his palms a little, as if he can threaten himself into believing it. He’s told himself for so long that he’ll take anything Jack gives him, _do_ anything to be back in his life. Time to fucking put up or shut up, apparently.

Before Kent can say anything, Tracy appears with the appetizers, interrupting the flow of conversation. They take a moment to eat, divvying up appetizers and dipping sauces, before Kent takes in a deep breath and says, “Yeah, I—I want that too, Zimms. I’d—I’m really fucking sorry, about everything. I’d do anything to fix it.”

“I know, I—me too. I’m sorry too,” Jack says, “I, um—I know it’d be hard to—I know I hurt you, and it’s hard to move past all that. But—” he looks down and smiles nervously, “I’d…really like you back in my life, Kenny.”

“That’s—” Kent feels his voice cracking and stalls by shoving a popcorn shrimp into his mouth and chewing doggedly. “I’ve wanted that—” _Forever. Since before you left._ “—a long time. I just...I really missed you, Zimms, and it was really fucking hard to—um, I just—”

“Kenny,” Jack cuts in. He reaches out and covers Kent’s hand with his but Kent jumps with surprise and Jack slips his hand away, staring down at it like he’s not sure how it moved in the first place. “I’m—um, I’m really sorry too. The way I treated you—it wasn’t right. I should’ve—I should’ve _talked_ to you.”

Kent shakes his head. “Jack, we—we were _kids._ It’s a miracle either of us bought fucking condoms without dying of embarrassment. I don’t—I mean, yeah, there’s a lot we could’ve done differently but—I don’t blame you for not knowing how. I’ve…never blamed you.”

“Maybe you should have,” Jack mutters, hands fidgeting in his lap. Tracy appears with their entrees and Jack smiles up at her. “Thank you. I’ll ah, yeah, I’ll have another glass of wine.”

Kent frowns down at his steak and bites his tongue until Tracy’s left them to their dinner. “Um, like, not to be an asshole, but—”

“I have a new medication,” Jack explains, sounding defensive and a little uncomfortable, “It’s fine to drink with it, occasionally.”

Kent holds up his hands, silverware glinting in the light. “Okay, okay. I just—had to ask, sorry.”

“Um, that’s okay. I shouldn’t have—” Jack waves his hand vaguely, “—you know.”

“It’s cool,” Kent says, and falls silent. They spend a few minutes eating, conversation falling awkwardly away as the din of the restaurant washes over them, the sounds of people laughing, servers bustling around, knives and forks clinking against plates.

Eventually, Kent clears his throat and asks, “So, uh—what was college like?”

Jack brightens immediately, a fond grin stretching across his face and his voice taking on the easy lilt Kent’s only ever heard him use for hockey. “I’ll start from the beginning.”

 

~*~

 

By the end of dinner, Kent knows, like, way more than he thought he could possibly know about a college hockey team and their frat house—to the point where he’s practically earned an honorary degree or something. It’s a little overwhelming—and yeah, maybe Kent is a little jealous, because all these people make Jack _happy_ in ways Kent never could—but it also feels good to see Jack like this.

It reminds Kent of when they were teenagers, before the pressure really started bearing down on them—before it all went to shit. They’d hang out after practice, sprawled on the floor of Kent’s billet house, chatting about school—especially history. People always said that Zimms was boring, some kind of hockey robot who never talked. They just never asked him about World War Two.

“…and I wasn’t even thinking when I pulled the fire extinguisher on them,” Jack is explaining, gesturing excitedly. He doesn’t seem to notice when Tracy comes over with the check, which doesn’t really matter since Kent is paying anyway; Kent winks at her when he hands her the bill back and she smiles. “But it freaked ‘em out enough that they left with the drunk guy, so.”

“That’s fucking priceless, Zimms.” Kent laughs, shaking his head in fond disbelief. “I’d’ve killed to see those assholes’ faces. Where’d you even get a fire extinguisher?”

Jack smirks. “I bought one for the kitchen after the third time Ransom and Holster set their bagel bites on fire. It’s a miracle that place is still standing, eh?”

“I’ll say,” Kent agrees. He stands reluctantly, shrugging back into his suit jacket and shuffling his feet a little. The bill is paid, Tracy generously tipped, and there’s not really an excuse to linger even if he wants there to be.

“Bitty’s whipped them into pretty good shape, though. I don’t think there’s been a kitchen fire all year,” Jack comments, his voice affectionate but a little distant.

Kent’s stomach twinges. Jack’s talked about a lot of his teammates, but this kid, Bitty—seems special. Jack’s face doesn’t light up the same when he talks about anyone else and Kent’s not at all above being jealous about that. But—Jack is happy, and _talking,_ and that’s so much more than Kent’s had in years and there’s no way in hell he’s going to say something snide about anyone on that team and ruin it again.

“You know,” he says instead, “that kinda implies there’s been _other_ fires in the Haus.”

They’re making their way out to the car, shoulders braced against the nighttime chill. Chuckling, Jack says, “No comment.”

“Rude, Zimms,” Kent complains, “I’d tell you about _my_ frat house fires. If I had a frat house. And set it on fire.”

Jack laughs, head thrown back and shoulders shaking a little, like he really means it. They’re at the car now, Kent leaning against it casually in an attempt to hide the fact he’s nervous as hell and trying to stall.

“Um, so—” he ventures, wincing and praying Jack doesn’t notice the way his voice is shaking, “I, um, could drive you back to the hotel? Or—um, I know you’re like, probably jet-lagged and all, so—but, you could come over? Just, uh—like, we could throw on Netflix or something.”

There’s this awful fucking pause where Jack kind of frowns and looks down at his phone and Kent is convinced that he’s magically ruined everything by inviting Jack over because maybe that’s _weird_ or something, shit, like maybe it seems like Kent’s coming onto him (he is) or he’s too desperate (he’s also that) or—

“Sure, I’m not too tired actually?” Jack shrugs.

Kent takes a second or two longer to process than he really should and then splutters, “Oh, uh—nice. Cool.”

Jack smiles and hops in the car.

 

~*~

 

Back at Kent’s apartment, Jack tries to woo Kit, fails, and then resigns himself to the couch in solitude. Kent laughs ruefully and scratches Kit’s ears as she ambles away in search of her food bowl, which he’s taken a moment to refill, then settles next to Jack on the couch, close enough that their shoulders would touch if Jack leaned in a little.

Jack doesn’t lean in, but their knees do bump together when Kent grabs the remote off the coffee table and neither of them move away, so—you win some, you lose some, or whatever.

Kent switches on the TV and starts scrolling through the channels. “So, uh—I’ve got Netflix if you want, or we could just see what’s on, or—ooh, is that a new episode of _Chopped?_ We should—”

“No, wait, was that the History channel? Go back,” Jack cuts in eagerly, nudging Kent with an elbow.

Groaning dramatically, Kent protests, “Zimms, you know I love you and all—” he winces, but Jack seems unfazed, “—but a documentary is gonna put me right the fuck to sleep right now, and I don’t think you want drool on your shirt so—”

“Kenny,” Jack insists, “this one is great I promise, c’mon.” He nudges Kent again, and this time their arms stay pressed together afterwards.

Kent plays up the indecision a little before he relents, making a show of humming and stroking his chin. “Yeah, alright. Queue it up, bro,” he says, handing the remote over and reaching across Jack to snag a throw blanket off the arm of the couch. “But I’m getting comfy.”

Jack smiles softly, as if it wasn’t obvious Kent would give him the whole fucking world for less. If their thighs press together a little when Kent resettles in his seat, it’s totally one hundred percent an accident.

They switch to the documentary like fifteen minutes after it’s started, so during the commercial Jack catches Kent up on whatever time period they’re in, gesturing excitedly as he goes. Kent does a pretty half-assed job of paying attention if he’s being honest, letting the words wash over him in a soothing blur, focusing on the cadence and pitch of Jack’s voice, the arcing sweeps of his hand through the air.

Kent wonders briefly, intensely, what it would be like to grab that hand and bring it up to his lips, slip a finger into his mouth and suck back on it gently, feel the ridges of Jack’s fingerprint along his tongue.

_Fuck, shit—what the fuck._

“Kenny?” Jack’s voice is a little raspy, uncomfortable and curious, and Kent wonders what his face must look like. Jack’s is—clouded with something Kent can’t describe and he looks away, sucking in a deep breath in a pretty pathetic attempt at grounding himself.

“Sorry, what—” Kent starts, but the commercials end so he ends up saying, “I’ll catch up, it’s cool,” instead.

Jack shakes his head, but he doesn’t seem pissed off, more like he’s chirping Kent in his head. He turns his attention back to the TV and Kent does the same, determined to actually watch the show, maybe engage Jack in a conversation about it. A friendly conversation. That friends have. Because Kent isn’t about to crawl out of his skin with how badly he wants Jack, or anything.

He’s not—because that would be pathetic, and kind of gross, that after all this time and how far they’ve come and the olive branch Jack’s extended tonight, all Kent can think about is how he’s so fucking lonely that sometimes he wants to die and maybe if they fuck Kent won’t be alone anymore. So he watches the TV like, really intently. Laser-focused.

Kent falls asleep when the narrator starts talking about war-time rations and startles awake some indeterminate amount of time later when a tank blows something up. He looks around, a little dazed, and realizes a couple things. First of all, Jack’s arm is sorta-kinda around Kent’s back, because Kent’s slumped over onto Jack’s chest. Second of all, there’s a patch of drool on Jack’s shirt—which Kent literally warned him about, so whatever.

Third of all, Jack is staring down at Kent instead of at the TV with something—complicated—in his expression, conflicted but soft, and it makes every bone in Kent’s body hurt.

“Just like old times, huh?” Kent murmurs sleepily, looking up at Jack through half-lidded eyes.

Jack takes a second to answer, like he’s translating the words first. “Yeah.”

Kent wriggles so he’s sitting up a little more, but leaves his head resting high on Jack’s shoulder, face tilted up towards him. “I missed this,” he says softly, and Jack leans in a little closer—not enough to notice unless it’s the only thing you’ve wanted for nearly seven years. Which, yeah. Kent notices.

“Me—me too,” Jack answers, bewildered, like he’s surprised it’s true and that he’s said it and that he’s here at all. His eyes are wide and blue and Kent wants to cry so he kisses Jack before he does.

Jack’s lips are soft and thin. Kent envelopes them with his, kisses deep, slow, bringing a hand up to cup Jack’s cheek and dropping the other to Jack’s hip. Jack melts against him, turns fluid and easy like mercury coating Kent’s heart. His tongue is hot and careful in Kent’s mouth, slipping inside with a practiced precision that should’ve been lost after all these years but hasn’t.

It hurts, how deeply Kent needs this—how whole it makes him feel—it hurts, and his entire life has been those two words, with an _‘I love you,’_ sometimes, when he’s been lucky, and the hurt is more than he can hold in his skin.

Kent swings a leg over and straddles Jack, deepening their kiss and slipping a hand up into his hair. Jack huffs out an almost-laugh and grabs at Kent’s hips, his fingers burning through the thin fabric covering Kent’s body. His own fingers trembling, Kent moves to work at Jack’s belt, fumbling with the buckle and stubbornly refusing to lean away from the kiss so that he can see what he’s doing.

Jack does the separating for him the moment the buckle snaps open. “Kenny, Kent—wait, I—” Kent hesitates, forehead pressed against Jack’s and eyes open to witness the sudden pain in Jack’s face. “I can’t do this.”

“Zimms, please, we—”

Jack’s voice is panicked, sharp and terrified, and Kent can feel his breath against his own lips. “I have a boyfriend, Kenny, I—oh my God, I have a boyfriend. I’m—Bitty—I can’t, I’m sorry.”

Bitty. Of course. Kent—he knew—should’ve known—he knew there was something—everything was too good to be true because of course, _of fucking course_ Jack doesn’t love him and he never did and it hurts and it’ll always hurt and Kent could pour acid into his lungs and feel less pain than this. And he should—he should be angry, furious, he should throw Jack out for letting it come to this because Jack has a boyfriend and Kent is in love with him and Jack knew—he _knew_ and here he is with his hands still on Kent’s hips.

So Kent should tell Jack to go. He has to, because what else is there to do? He needs to let this be the end—the real end, the one that should have happened seven years ago but Jack couldn’t do that right just like he couldn’t off himself for good, either, and they’ve both lived half-bled out ever since. Kent should say _fuck you, get out, go home to your boyfriend._

Kent isn’t strong enough to say any of those things. Instead he laughs, quiet and broken, and whispers, “I guess you finally found something more important than hockey.”

The pain on Jack’s face isn’t vindicating like Kent thought it would be. It never is. It’s not surprising, either, because Kent had wanted to put it there. Like he always does.

What is surprising is the way Jack crushes their mouths back together—a hand whipping up to fist in Kent’s hair and tightening so hard Kent whites out behind his eyelids—almost as if in defiance. What’s surprising is the desperation, the sharp sink of teeth into Kent’s bottom lip and the arm that yanks Kent flush against Jack’s chest, the shallow breaths that sound more like sobs and the buck of hips up against Kent’s abdomen.

 _It’s wrong,_ Kent thinks, with his hands back at Jack’s belt.

 _You’ll regret this,_ Kent thinks, as his knees hit the floor and his shaking fingers pull Jack’s dick free of his boxers.

 _It’s not enough,_ Kent thinks, when Jack comes down his throat with hands pulled tight in Kent’s hair, when he crawls back into Jack’s lap and Jack kisses the spunk taste out of his mouth. _It’s not enough,_ when Kent looks down blankly and watches Jack yank his pants off for him, and wonders why he isn’t even hard.

Jack sounds far away when he asks, puzzled, “Did you come already?”

“No,” Kent answers, his voice scratchy and unused. His dick is hanging soft against his thigh and Jack is kind of just staring at it and Kent repeats, “No, um—but it’s—it’s okay, I don’t—it’s okay.”

Jack reaches out to touch him, saying, “No, I can—um, just let me—” and Kent shrinks away a little without even meaning to.

“Don’t, I—I need a minute, I—”

“Are you okay?”

Kent goes rigid, the muscles all through his body freezing up and he nearly topples off the couch because he can’t balance anymore. He grips the armrest for support and asks, “Are _you?”_

Jack seems legitimately startled by the question, like he hadn’t considered someone could ask it. He’s shaking. Has Jack always been shaking?

“Zimms—”

“Get—no, I’m not—get off me, Parse!”

Kent scrambles to the side, back pressed up the far end of the couch, and pulls his pants back up as he goes because _Jesus Christ._ His heart is beating wildly in his chest and Jack is staring at him with a feral terror in his eyes, every bit the wounded animal Kent had dreamed, with a pathetic misplaced nostalgia, of re-taming.

“I can’t—” Jack whispers, maybe not even to Kent, “What did we—I promised him—he trusted me and I—what did we do?” His voice is ragged and shallow, the words tumbling in harsh clusters from his lips.

Kent can feel every inch of his skin pulling off his bones the way tomato skins peel after they’ve been boiled. “I love you,” he tells Jack, for absolutely no reason, because it’s never mattered and it never will. It feels a little like dying.

“Bitty loves me,” Jack says, because he wants Kent to die. “Bitty loves me and I—I did this to him. I’m—I’m a fucking— _fucking_ piece of shit and you—Kent how could I—”

“I don’t know, Christ—fuck, Jack, I just—” Kent chokes out, fighting to shove a sob back down his throat, “I just miss you so much and I love you, I fucking love you and I thought we—”

Jack fists his hands in his hair and squeezes his eyes shut, chest heaving out frantic breaths. “Stop, _stop,_ please, I—can’t—I need to leave.” He pushes up off the couch, fumbling to do up his belt buckle, and Kent clambers up after him.

“What? Don’t go, Jack, you’re—you’re freaking the fuck out okay, just—stay here tonight and—”

Jack runs an angry hand through his hand and turns the doorknob in his other. _“No,_ Parse! I have to, I—it’s better if I go, just—”

Nothing’s better when Jack leaves. Not for Kent. He grabs at Jack’s arm and Jack shrugs him off like swatting at a fly. “At least—let me drive you back, okay? I’m—I’m _worried_ and you need—”

“I’ll call an Uber.” Jack’s voice is hard, the cold sheen of fresh ice on a pond. He slips through the door out into the hallway and Kent follows.

“Jack, you’re not—how many pills do you have with you?” Kent doesn’t have the courage to ask the real question, or really even enough to hear the answer, but he never even tried, the last time, didn’t even know he should.

“I’m not a teenager anymore,” Jack snaps, and fucking Christ there are so many things wrong with that answer and Kent kind of wants to die himself and he wonders what Jack would have done, all those years ago, if Kent’d been the one on the floor with a bottle of pills. He wonders what it would be like to die and come back to life instead of just rot away for years and years until there was nothing left but this.

“Really?” Kent shoots back, “Because the dick in my mouth felt pretty familiar.”

Jack doesn’t answer. He looks like he’d slam the door if he could, though, but Kent is holding it so he can’t, and he just leaves instead.

Kent slams the door for him, once he’s vanished around the corner towards the elevator. Kit yowls and darts out from where she’s been hiding under the TV stand, fleeing into the bedroom. Figures.

Everything’s kind of hazy and red-tinted, which should be more of a problem but Kent just adds it to the long list of shit-fucked things in his life and grabs his phone off the kitchen counter. _Mashkov,_ he thinks, _why the fuck does he have to room with Mashkov?_

Fingers shaking, Kent pulls up Twitter and finds Tater’s account to send him a DM.

 **_@realkvparson (11:31 pm):_ ** _I know you hate me or whatever but I need you to do something for me_

 **_@realkvparson (11:31 pm):_ ** _Keep an eye out on Jack tonight okay? …just, don’t let him be alone_

Kent holds his breath and calculates the odds Mashkov is: A. asleep and/or B. has zero percent interest in talking to him and won’t even open his messages.

 **_@tinypotatoes7 (11:37 pm):_ ** _I do not hate you before. Is just hockey. But you hurt Zimmboni? Maybe hate you now. I will watch him. He is family_

Kent is sitting on the floor. He’s not really sure when that happened, actually, but fuck it.

 **_@realkvparson (11:38 pm):_ ** _How come no one ever asks if Jack hurt me?_

 **_@tinypotatoes7 (11:38 pm):_ ** _Because it shows on face, Parson_

Figuring that’s the end of it, and somehow a little relieved because at least Jack will be fine, Kent stands and wanders through the apartment, tidying up, erasing the signs Jack was ever there. He folds the blanket up and sets it on the armrest. He switches off the TV and sets the remote on the coffee table, then straightens that table when he realizes it’s been knocked off-center. Then, his phone buzzes again.

 **_@tinypotatoes7 (11:43 pm):_ ** _Who makes sure you are not alone?_

If Kent closes his eyes and breathes very, very slowly, he can almost pretend he isn’t falling apart.

 

~*~

 

Kent spends the next eight days pretending he can drink himself to death with seltzer water and listening to Swoops grind his teeth into dust as he bites back the _‘I told you so’_ he desperately, deservedly, wants to say.

It’s a relatively sustainable lifestyle seeing as hydration is practically part of his job description and like five of Swoops’ teeth are fake, anyway.

On day nine, give or take a few hours, the phone rings right as Kent is lowering himself into a Lush product-filled bath—because he’s not allowed to have nice things. Grumbling, Kent dries his hands off on a towel and grabs his cell. Then, he nearly drops it in the bubblegum pink water. Because it’s Jack calling, and fuck everything.

Kent spends a couple seconds staring at the phone catastrophizing. All things considered, it’s better than hoping.

_‘Hey, Kenny. Just wanted to call and yell at you for a while, so I can blame you instead of myself.’_

That one’s pretty par for the course. 2/10 for low originality.

_‘Hey, Kenny. What’s your address? My boyfriend wants to send you a poisoned pie.’_

Bringing in personal details is a nice touch. 6/10.

_‘Hey, Kenny. My boyfriend is hiring a hitman and I know how much you hate yourself, so I thought maybe you’d want to go halvesies on the cost.’_

Jack wouldn’t say ‘halvesies.’ 9/10 otherwise, though.

The call goes to voicemail and Kent curses under his breath, fumbling to unlock his phone and call Jack back. He picks up on the second ring, asking, “Hello? Kent?”

“Um. Yeah. Yeah, I’m—what’s up?” Kent cringes at the weird pitch of his own voice and braces for impact.

“Actually, do you have time to Skype right now?”

11/10 originality, outcome entirely unexpected. Stupidly and thick-tongued, Kent just answers, “I’m in the bath.”

“…is that a no?”

Rolling his eyes, Kent asks, “Is this a conversation I can have naked?”

“Um, sure?” Jack sounds—not pissed at all, actually, which—what the fuck? What the _actual_ fuck, to be honest. He just sounds, like, nervous and a little amused.

Kent stares down into the bathtub. He wiggles his toes and watches the water ripple around his feet. “Yeah, sure, whatever. I’ll Skype.”

So they hang up and Jack calls him on Skype, and Kent tries to angle his phone to focus mostly on his face and not on the pink bathwater or the giant ugly bruise he has near his right collarbone after the hit he took two days ago. Because he has an aesthetic to maintain and all.

Jack is wearing clothes, because he had significantly more forewarning about this situation. He’s also probably on a laptop, because Kent can see most of Jack’s body, hunched forward on a couch with his hands twitching restlessly in his lap.

“Um, hey,” Jack says, eyes flicking off to the side like he wasn’t expecting Kent to literally be fucking naked and in a bath.

“Uh, yeah—hey? I—Jack, what—”

“I told Bitty. About, um—the, what we—”

Kent massages his brow with his free hand. “The cheating?” he suggests, like a dick, but honestly like call a fucking spade (heh) a spade at this point. “Or are we being pretentious and saying ‘affair?’”

“—what we did,” Jack finishes stubbornly, pretty much ignoring Kent entirely.

“Okay.” Kent pushes all the air out through his nose and runs damp fingers through his hair. “And?”

“And—and he wasn’t mad. Er, I mean—I’m sure he was, at first, because Christ did I deserve it but he—we talked about it and he took some time and—things are okay.”

There’s something thick and ugly in Kent’s gut—not even jealousy, just—fermented hope rotting inside him, turning bitter and warped because Jesus Christ, what did he _want_ to happen? He knows the answer to that, of course, because it’s the same thing he always wants.

“That’s _so great,_ Jack. I’m really, really happy you called me to let me know your little twink boyfriend took you back.”

“Jesus, Kent! First of all, watch your mouth,” Jack snaps, his scowl prominent through the pixelated video feed, “And—that’s not why I called but if you’re going to be like this—”

Kent sits up quickly, listening to the water sloshing around in the tub. “No, sorry, I—shit. I just—fuck, I’m sorry.”

Jack’s sigh crackles through Kent’s phone speaker. “It’s—fine, just—leave Bitty out of this. He hasn’t done anything to you.”

“I know, Jack, I’m—I know, okay? So—why’d you call then?” Kent squeezes his eyes shut while he waits for Jack to answer.

“Um. Bitty said—he said that he wanted me to be happy. And if—if that meant being with you too, he would be okay with that.” Jack might be smiling—one of those soft and quiet smiles he had last week before it all went to shit—but it’s hard to tell from the video quality.

Everything in Kent’s body evaporates. His mouth goes dry, the blood boils out of his veins. His heart pumps empty adrenaline, racing, wild and barren and desperate. “Does it?” he asks, disbelieving, his trembling fingers shaking the phone in his hand.

Jack says, “If—yes, if you’re okay with that,” and Kent can’t breathe. There are countless ways he’s imagined this—Jack taking him back, Jack _wanting_ him—and he’s never thought of this, that the way back to Jack Zimmermann would be paved by a sloppy illicit blowjob and a college kid who wants to share. Kent doesn’t care. He’d do—

“Anything, Jack—Zimms, I’d—do anything. Just tell me how this works.”

 

~*~

 

How it works, apparently, is that Jack texts and calls—sometimes there’s even Skype sex—and Kent spends like, seventy percent more time than he thought he would watching Eric Bittle’s baking vlog.

It’s fucking weird, and Kent knows that. Because he and Bitty have never met, or spoken on the phone, or acknowledged that the other exists other than in the nebulous “my boyfriend has a second boyfriend” kind of way. Except Jack talks about Bitty sometimes, and Kent is almost positive that Jack never talks about Kent to Bitty, so that fucking sucks.

But one day Jack mentions the vlog and Kent likes pain a little more than he’ll admit out loud, so he tracks it down (seriously, how hasn’t Jack found this thing?) and starts watching from the beginning. If he’s being honest with himself—which he’s not a good two-thirds of the time, so whatever—he’s kind of looking for a reason to hate Bitty. It seems like it’d be easier that way, if he can explain away all his jealousy and insecurity with, _‘oh, well, the other guy’s a jerk, so.’_

It doesn’t work, because Bitty is this ridiculously adorable ray of sunshine who’s probably never done anything worth hating in his entire life, and Kent just hates himself more instead. But he starts to think—maybe this really is all okay. Maybe Bitty is at peace with everything and Kent’s happiness hasn’t cost him a damn thing—he’s allowed to have this, and Bitty’s on the other side of the country baking his little gay heart out with a smile.

 

_“H-hi y’all. I’m sorry this video is a few days late,” Bitty apologizes to the camera, voice shaking. He’s in his room at the frat house and his face is all blotchy, like he’s just finished crying. “Um. Something happened, with my boyfriend, and I don’t—um, I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared—”_

 

Kent pauses the video and checks the date it was posted with bile rising in his throat. _Well,_ he thinks, closing the tab with more than a little shame, _there goes that._

 

~*~

 

So Kent finds himself, when Jack calls him up to invite him to Providence to meet Bitty, really fucking wishing he had a good excuse to say no. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Jack—fuck, he always wants to see Jack and he hasn’t since this whole thing started—it’s just that he’s pretty sure he definitely doesn’t have the balls to look this kid in the eye. Also, Kent should probably stop calling him a kid, but hey, one awkward social situation at a time.

Jack pretty much insists, though, saying that he thinks the two of them would hit it off and maybe—maybe this whole fucked situation can stop being so lopsided. As if it won’t be the most uncomfortable thing in the world, as if Bitty could ever possible wanna be around Kent after the shit he’s pulled.

But, Kent argues feebly, maybe he’s just being too negative. It’s been a long time since Bitty recorded that video, after all—maybe he’s worked through it and he and Jack are fine and he and _Kent_ will be fine too.

He’s still trying to convince himself of that one when he knocks on Jack’s apartment door, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a bottle of wine in his hands—because what do you bring as like, an apartment-warming present for your host who is also your boyfriend’s other boyfriend? Maybe a candle would’ve been better. Or hard liquor.

“Kenny!” Jack answers the door, which—thank fuck—and pulls Kent into a hug immediately, arms going tight around his back and pressing a quick kiss to his temple as the door swings shut.

“Hey, Zimms.” Kent nuzzles his face into the crook of Jack’s shoulder, breathing him in—letting himself think, for a moment, that this is all there is. “Long time no see.”

Someone clears his throat and Kent pulls away a little to lock eyes with Bitty, who’s come to stand behind Jack with a fake-ass smile plastered on his face. It’s the same one Kent uses all the time.

“Oh, hey,” Kent greets, “Bitty, right? It’s, uh—nice to meet you.” He holds out his hand to offer a shake, but Bitty waves him off and pulls him into a hug instead—which is actually pretty nice, and Kent relaxes a little.

And then Bitty says, his voice thinly coated with pleasantry, “Oh, please, call me Eric.”

 

_It’s one of Bitty’s first videos at Samwell; his hair is shaggy and he still carries his youth in the roundness of his cheeks and the naivety of his smile. “All my friends call me Bitty now. It feels—so much better, you know? Like something’s finally mine.”_

 

Kent borrows Bitty’s manufactured smile and hands over the bottle of wine, some vintage he bought years ago and never got around to drinking and never will, now. “Sure, Eric.”

“Oh, a Chardonnay!” Bitty gasps, spinning the bottle to read over the label. He flicks his eyes back up to meet Kent’s when he teases, “Jack went and told you this was my favorite, didn’t he?”

Kent shrugs awkwardly. “Uh, nah. Just got lucky I guess.”

Without missing a beat, Bitty answers briskly, “Oh, well, there’s been a lot of that going around, hasn’t there?” and bustles off to the kitchen so fast there’s practically a cloud of smoke trailing him.

Kent stares after him blankly before asking Jack, “Er. Is he always like that?”

Jack, who seems completely unaffected by the exchange, tilts his head. “Like what?”

“Jesus Christ,” Kent mutters. He stashes his bag under the pool table and hops up onto the side of it. “Never mind, c’mere.”

Jack grins and steps between Kent’s legs, dipping down to press a kiss to his lips, hands resting lightly on his hips. It sends a shiver through Kent’s body—the gentle touches, the little flicks of tongue that strike like a match on Kent’s teeth. He’s dreamed about this for years, wondered what it’d be like to kiss Jack when there was no hurry—no expiration date, no monster lurking on the other side of the door.

And then Kent pulls away, because something clatters in the kitchen and he remembers where he is with a sudden lurch of technically-misplaced shame. Jack raises an eyebrow and Kent shrugs, saying, “Later, yeah?”

“Sure?” Jack furrows his eyebrows momentarily but seems to shake it off, then calls, “Hey, Bits, want any help with dinner?”

Bitty’s head pokes back around the doorway. “Oh, that’s sweet, honey, but I’m almost wrapped up. Y’all can set the table, though!”

Jack takes Kent’s hand and tugs him off the pool table, leading him towards the kitchen where Bitty has busied himself with several pots and pans, stirring one of them with an intense expression of concentration.

While Jack starts pulling plates down from a cabinet, Kent glances over and tells Bitty, “That smells fucking incredible.”

Apparently caught off-guard, Bitty looks up with wide eyes. “Oh, um—thanks? It’s nothin’ special.”

“No, seriously,” Kent insists, “I’d kill someone to be able to cook like that.”

Bitty seems conflicted, worrying at his lip before giving Kent a tiny smile and turning his attention to a pan; he has chicken breasts frying that he starts to flip over.

Jack chirps, “Still burning water, eh Kenny?”

“Fuck you, Zimms. That hasn’t happened in _years.”_

“Now, I did get a C- in chemistry, but I’m not entirely sure that’s physically possible,” Bitty chirps. His eyes flick over to Kent, who makes a valiant effort at pretending he’s not surprised by the civility.

“See, Bi—Eric says you can’t burn water, Jack,” Kent says, “And he’s the expert.”

Jack holds up his hands in defeat, smirking playfully. “Fine, gang up on me in my own apartment.”

“You like it,” Kent mutters, and maybe he’s hallucinating from all the stress but he could _swear_ he hears Bitty huff out a quiet laugh.

Kent snags himself a water bottle from the fridge and shifts away to help Jack set the table after that, and Bitty wraps up the cooking a few minutes later before joining them. He comes out with the wine, too, and leans over to pour Kent a glass.

“Oh, no thanks,” Kent says, waving a hand awkwardly as he declines, “I don’t, uh—I don’t drink.”

Bitty tilts his head and purses his lips, searching for something in Kent’s face. “You brought us a five-hundred dollar wine you won’t drink?”

“Um. What was I supposed to bring?”

“Lord, like—a candle or something? I don’t know.” Bitty’s lips twitch weirdly and he turns away to pour himself and Jack glasses.

Kent takes a wry sip of his water. “Well, in my defense I don’t use candles either. My asshole cat set herself on fire this one time and—”

Bitty cuts him off with an exaggerated laugh. “No! She didn’t!”

“Okay, like, before you call PETA on me I wanna emphasize it was a _small_ fire, okay?” Kent insists, leaning forward onto his elbows and gesturing while he talks, “She’s got long-ass fur and she brushed her tail against one a little too long. I put it out before she even noticed.”

“Father of the year,” Bitty drawls, his tone probably a little meaner than necessary, but Kent knows for a fact that he deserves worse—and Jack is laughing and Bitty’s cheerful expression looks _almost_ genuine, so he’ll take it.

 

~*~

 

Thanks to Kent’s story about Kit breaking the ice, dinner is about two hundred percent less awkward than it could’ve been, and he’s kind of starting to think they might all make it through this weekend without murdering each other.

Afterwards, Jack ambles into the living room and switches on the TV. Kent starts to follow him, but hesitates when he realizes Bitty is lingering in the kitchen with the water running. Peering at Jack curiously, Kent turns and wanders back over where he finds Bitty washing the dishes, a pinched expression on his face.

“I could—uh, I could do that?” he offers, leaning against the doorway uncomfortably.

Bitty jumps, soapy water splashing up into the air when he turns, and quickly smiles. “Oh, don’t be silly—you’re a guest. I, um—I kinda like this, anyway. It’s soothing?”

Kent hesitates, tempted by the permission to flee back into the living room with Jack, but Bitty hadn’t seemed all that peaceful before he walked in, so. “Nah, you cooked that whole fucking dinner for us so like, uh—at least let me help?”

Bitty’s smile turns less woody and his eyes even crinkle a little. “Oh, um. Thanks.” He shifts to the side so there’s room for Kent next to him at the sink and holds out his sponge.

“Yeah, ‘course.” Kent grabs the sponge and snags a plate to scrub. They’re quiet for a few minutes, Kent washing and Bitty humming under his breath while he loads the dishwasher. Then, Kent clears his throat and comments, “I thought I was the only one who pre-washed the dishes,” which startles a laugh out of Bitty.

“Oh, Lord no. This is a _nice_ dishwasher and I still wouldn’t trust it as far as I could throw it.” As if to make his point, he kicks at it with his foot.

Maybe it’s the wine he watched everyone else drink, but Kent is feeling a little brazen and, hey—that’s technically what this trip is for anyway, right? So he makes a point of dropping his gaze to Bitty’s arms, which are—okay, wow, legitimately really attractive—and smirks. “Dunno if that’s a good comparison. You look like you could throw it pretty far.”

Bitty turns red immediately and ducks his head, busying himself with reorganizing the dishwasher even though everything looked fine before. “You’re a charmer, aren’t you?” he mutters, but there’s a hard edge to his voice that makes it pretty clear he doesn’t entirely mean it as a compliment.

Kent doesn’t know how to answer that without sounding like a bigger asshole than he already does, so he turns his attention back to the sink, which is running out of dishes at a frustrating rate. He’s kind of incapable of shutting his fucking mouth though, so pretty soon for some God-forsaken reason he finds himself mentioning, “I watched your blog.”

A plate clatters against the washing rack when Bitty drops it abruptly. “What?”

“Not, uh—not the recent ones. I—stopped—like, around your junior year?” Kent says quickly, “I—figured that’d be—weird. I just—uh, I made a pie and not a single person who ate it barfed, so—thanks.”

Some of the tension seeps back out of Bitty’s shoulders but he still doesn’t face Kent again. “Well, I’d hope so. My recipes are—”

“‘So easy a hockey player could bake ‘em?’” Kent supplies, and Bitty turns at that, eyebrows lifted in surprise. “It’s a good tagline. And true.”

Bitty snorts. “Mostly true. I think Chowder’s hopeless, the poor sweet boy.” He hesitates a moment, then asks, “What’d you make?”

“Uh, the blueberry crumble? I tried making the fancy spiraled crust you had but that was the biggest clusterfuck you’ve ever seen, Jesus Christ, so I switched last minute.”  

“Prob’ly for the best,” Bitty says, “That pattern took me ages to learn and it’s still a pain in the ass sometimes. Mostly ‘cause I do a lot more baking drunk now, but don’t tell my mother that.”

Kent laughs and looks over to find Bitty smirking, hip braced against the counter while he waits for Kent to hand him another plate for the dishwasher. The silence resumes, a little less suffocating than before, as they work through nearly the entire sink.

Kent spins a fork around in between his fingers and fights through the lump in his throat to say, “Look, about what happened—”

“There’s not a bone in my body that wants to talk about this.” Bitty’s voice is soft, wavering over the words, and it’s probably the first genuine thing he’s said to Kent all night.

It takes Kent a moment to find his voice again before he can say, “I’m just really sorry.”

Bitty clears his throat. “That’s nice,” he says airily, like Kent’s just told him it’ll be warm outside tomorrow. “Pass me the silverware.”

Kent does—silently, because he’s pretty sure the next time he says something stupid Bitty will stab him with that steak knife he’s got on the counter—and then all the dishes are done, so he hands Bitty the detergent and they relocate to the living room where Jack is reclined on the couch watching ESPN.

Bitty drapes himself half in Jack’s lap and leans up against the armrest, plucking the remote out of his hands. Unsure of what the boundaries are and feeling awkward, Kent plops down on Jack’s other side and nudges up against him a little.

Jack practically beams at him and wraps an arm around his shoulders immediately, so Kent leans into the touch and flicks a cautious glance over at Bitty; his eyes are fixed on the TV as he scrolls through the channels, but his jaw clenches a little and Kent’s stomach twists.

“Ooh, a new _Chopped!_ I’m claimin’ the TV for this,” Bitty declares, and okay—Kent knows _Chopped_ is a pretty popular show so it’s not like, that weird of a coincidence or anything—but it gives him an unsettling déjà vu, and if Jack asks to switch to the History channel Kent might strangle him.

Jack doesn’t say anything though, not until the contestants are halfway through the first challenge and Bitty’s made a huffy comment—that was not adorable at all, thank you very much—criticizing one of the competitor’s choice of sauce or something.

“—and I know I’m not a professional or anything, I’m just sayin’—”

“You could be,” Jack says seriously, with an achingly familiar warm tone—the tone that used to mean _‘Coach’ll start you next game for sure, Kenny,’_ or _‘My parents like you, I promise,’_ or _‘You make me happy.’_

Bitty flushes and ducks his head. “Oh, please. I’m nowhere near as good as any of them.”

Jack insists, “That’s not true. You’ve cooked for the whole Haus using weirder stuff before and it was great.” He nuzzles his nose against Bitty’s cheek and gets a foot kicked at his chest in response.

Fussing and half-heartedly shoving Jack’s face away, Bitty protests, “Yes, well—you boys don’t exactly have the palates of Alex or Scott. It ain’t—it’s not the same.”  

“Are you insulting my taste, Bittle?” Jack teases, and Kent can picture the glint in his eyes even though he’s facing away. Suddenly, he lunges forward—his arm pulling away from around Kent’s shoulders—and digs his fingers into Bitty’s sides, where Bitty is apparently super fucking ticklish.

Bitty squeals and kicks out, fighting to push Jack away or maybe tickle him back—Kent can’t tell. “Oh my _Lord,_ you’re such a big, ridiculous _brute_ of a man! Shoo!”

Leaning away from the tousle, Kent feels a rough throbbing in his chest, this melancholy sensation telling him that maybe—in some other life, one where Jack didn’t drink or Kent asked different questions or nothing and everything was hockey and hockey didn’t kill you—maybe this could have been his. Because there are ghosts of himself in this—whispers of crooked teeth in a wide grin, the flop of blond hair over crinkled eyes—that he can reach for with thick, heavy fingers and pretend he can touch.

But it’s not for him—not the laughter or the crop of judges talking about the texture of radish puree, not the easy smiles or the warmth in Jack’s voice. There are things that do belong to Kent: drooling to the sound of vintage tanks firing and finding rug burn on his knees at midnight. And there are things he causes: the laughter leaving Eric Bittle’s eyes and the veneer covering his smile when he catches Kent staring.

Jack brackets Bitty with his body and nuzzles at his neck; Kent can hear the soft sound of kisses being pressed there, followed by a gentle murmur—a question, maybe—that Kent can’t make out.

“N-not tonight,” Bitty answers, and then he drops his mouth closer to Jack’s ear, voice pitching low, which keeps Kent from catching the rest.

Whatever Bitty says causes Jack to sit up again, eyebrows furrowed with worry. “You’re okay though?” he asks, tugging Bitty forward to tuck against his side.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Bitty assures him, in a tone that definitely doesn’t sound fake at all, “Just—it’s been a long day. You know how the boys are when they really get going and Shitty bein’ in town made it ten times worse.”

Jack hums in agreement. “I’m sorry I missed them.”

“Oh, don’t be. I know the Little Falcs are important to you.”

“It’s one of the best parts of the job, eh Kenny?” Jack puts Kent in a headlock and ruffles his hair.

Kent laughs, shifting under Jack’s arm to rest against his side again. “Fuck, yeah. The kids are great. I do all the stuff with ‘em that I can.”

Jack squeezes Kent’s shoulder, then turns to Bitty and brags, “Kenny basically created the whole kids program at the Aces.”

“Wow, really? That’s impressive.”

“Oh, it’s not—uh.” Kent definitely isn’t blushing. He looks away, staring at a loose thread on the couch cushion. “It’s not a big deal, I didn’t really—how do you even know that?”

Jack shrugs, jostling both Kent and Bitty as he does; Kent feels like one of those metal balls on a chain, the kind that smack into each other and send the ones on the other side shooting off. “People talk,” Jack says. “You should be proud.”

“Uh, thanks. It’s not like I didn’t have a lot of help though.”

“Still though. Programs like that are so important,” Bitty comments. “So that’s a great thing, starting one up.”

“Um, yeah, I—thanks.” Kent looks over at Bitty and smiles; he gets a nod in return, and then Bitty’s attention is focused on the TV again as a contestant gets chopped and the second round starts up.

They go through a couple episodes together, the conversation staying sparse and light-hearted, until Bitty yawns and nuzzles against Jack’s shoulder. Jack ducks his head to murmur in Bitty’s ear, and Bitty answers, “Yeah, I think I’m gonna turn in.” He stands and stretches smoothly, his back arching in a pretty curve, then twitches his lips into a nervous smile. “Um, I’ll—goodnight, I guess? I’ll see you boys tomorrow.”

Jack’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. He says, “We’ll join you soon, Bits,” like he’s reminding him of something obvious.

Bitty’s smile turns tight around the edges. “Um, right. I just meant—if I fall asleep. Um. Night, honey.” With a kiss pressed to Jack’s temple, Bitty heads off, his exit punctuated with the click of the master bedroom door swinging closed.

“I thought you were the one with the bedtime,” Kent chirps, craning his neck to watch Bitty leave, half-expecting him to reappear the next time Kent blinks.

Jack shrugs. “I’m trying to be more flexible over the off-season. Besides, I—wanna spend time with you.”

Kent’s stomach flutters at that and he peers up at Jack from underneath his eyelashes, smirking. “Yeah? What’ve we been doing all night, then?” He brings a hand up and brushes his fingers along the exposed bit of Jack’s collarbone.

“Kenny.” Jack’s voice is rough, exasperated, laden with an implicit warning to behave that Kent will always, always ignore.

“Zimms?” he asks, barely a question because he sees the answer in Jack’s eyes, bright around the edges and dark with widening pupils—because the answer is a kiss already being pressed to his lips, a wry smile and fond flick of tongue.

The kissing is sweet—which isn’t a word Kent’s used very often in his life, not about people and especially not about Jack—not about the plethora of frenzied handjobs in hotel rooms or even the handful of times they fucked that last good summer in a lake house, wrestling around on the bed like there are things to win and lose when people make love.

But Jack kisses Kent sweetly, and Kent wonders where he learned it. Kent’s never taught sweetness, never known how to draw it up and out from where it lived untapped in his heart. _It must be Bitty,_ Kent thinks, and then Kent doesn’t think anything at all because Jack leans him back and presses him into the couch like they could sink right through.

Kent ruts his hips up and Jack gasps into his mouth, then grinds back down, setting a rhythm that has Kent’s eyes rolling back in his head and his dick growing hard in his shorts.

“Fuck,” Kent moan, arms scrabbling at Jack’s neck, fingers twisting in his hair, “Jesus, Jack—fuck, yeah, that’s—”

Jack clamps a hand down over Kent’s mouth, which would be hot as fuck if the next words out of his mouth weren’t, “Shh—Bitty.”

“What?” Kent stills immediately, his ass dropping back to the couch and eyes hardening. “He—Jack, he knows this—” he gestures between the two of them, “is _happening,_ right?”

Jack scowls and sits up a little. “Of course. I wouldn’t—I just meant, he’s probably trying to sleep. He’s tired.”

This could definitely be the end of the conversation. Kent could go, _‘Oh, yeah, I feel ya. I’ll keep down my sex noises as to not disturb your boyfriend,’_ and proceed with getting his brains fucked out on a very nice couch. But because Kent is a very specific kind of asshole, he asks, “Uh. About that—are you sure he’s just tired?”

“Excuse me?”

Kent cringes, but pushes forward anyway. “I just, like—you really didn’t notice how—off—he was acting all night? Because fuck, Jack. It’s because of _me.”_

“I don’t—Bitty says he had a long day. I believe him.”

Kent ignores him. “He basically hates me.  Why wouldn’t he? I mean, Jesus Christ, I’m—”

“He doesn’t—um, he doesn’t hate you,” Jack interrupts, voice tentative, “Because I—he doesn’t, uh—he thinks you didn’t know.”

Kent blinks slowly. “What?”

“He—it was all happening—he assumed you didn’t know about him. That you didn’t realize…what we were doing.” Jack squeezes his eyes shut and it does nothing to hide the shame in them. “I didn’t correct him.”

“What the _fuck,_ Jack?” Kent hisses, shoving at his shoulders and sitting up from underneath him. “You let him think—why? So this would happen?”

“No! I—I had no idea he’d suggest this. I just didn’t—I don’t know.”

Kent scrubs a hand over his face and squeezes at his temples, like it’ll organize the rush of jumbled thoughts in his brain. “It would’ve made you look better, if he knew—what I said to you.”

“That’s not what apologies are for, Kenny,” Jack says softly. His eyes are droopy and sad and warm, like blue things aren’t supposed to be.

“I guess not.” Kent brings a hand up to Jack’s cheek, just to have something to touch. His chest is still heaving angry breaths but his heart isn’t in it anymore, beating out of time with his lungs.

There’s a beat of hesitation and then Jack leans back down and presses their foreheads together. Kent can feel the creases between his eyebrows, the knots of worry and pain. Jack murmurs, “I never said sorry to you. I should have. I’m sorry.”

“I love you,” Kent says, and Jack’s breath hitches like he’s never heard Kent say it before and maybe he hasn’t—maybe he was never listening, maybe it was never like this, and Kent kisses him before he can answer because anything Jack could say would break his heart.

They kiss and kiss and Jack’s thigh is between Kent’s legs and he whispers, “Kenny, can I fuck you?” like the answer could be no.

“Yes, yeah—” Kent breathes, tugging at Jack’s bottom lip with his teeth, “I’ve got stuff in my bag.”

Jack hums and rolls off the couch, then grabs Kent by the ass and lifts him off the ground.

“Jesus Christ,” Kent swears, scrambling to wrap his legs around Jack’s waist and wraps his arms around his neck.

Jack chirps, “Didn’t think I could lift you?” and nips at Kent’s earlobe as he walks them over to the pool table where Kent left his bag earlier.

“Didn’t think you’d risk it.”

Jack smiles against Kent’s neck. “Your ass _is_ fatter than I remember,” he teases, then drops Kent to the ground.

“You’re one to talk,” Kent mutters, bending over to dig through his bag. He tosses a bottle of lube and his pack of condoms onto the pool table and jumps when Jack smacks his ass.

“Yeah, but I’ve always had a fat ass. Yours is a new development.” And okay, at some point over the past seven years, Zimms became a fucking _menace_ and if Kent wasn’t already stupid in love he would be now.

Kent stands and turns slowly, pulling Jack down into a kiss with one hand, pressing up against him, whole body shivering with anticipation. He asks, “Back to the couch, or—?” figuring there’s probably a spare bedroom or something Jack might wanna use instead.

“Actually,” Jack says, his tone devious in a way that makes Kent shudder, “I thought I’d bend you over this table. Since we’re here.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

Jack takes the blasphemy as a yes—which it abso-fucking-lutley is—and strips out of his shirt before helping Kent out of his and urging him down against the table. Kent goes easily, bracing himself on the edge and bending down, tilting his ass up to give Jack access. Hands trail down Kent’s back before settling at his shorts, undoing the button and yanking the fabric down to pool at his feet. Jack kisses at Kent’s thighs, the curve of his ass, the dip of his back, before pulling away to grab the lube.

Slicking up his fingers, Jack asks, “Have you bottomed recently?”

“Uh, I’ve got a dildo,” Kent offers suspiciously. “Wh—”

His question cuts off in a whine because fucking Christ, Jack shoves two fingers inside him at once and it’s so much, almost too much and he bites down on his own arm to keep from shouting, his body canting backwards against Jack like the fucking traitor it is.

Jack chuckles and pumps his fingers, working Kent open with a steady, electric hand—he presses in with sparks and flames, the pads of his fingers questioning as they search. There are kisses, too—wet, open-mouthed things against Kent’s shoulder blades and neck, with nips of teeth that yank Kent back to Earth whenever he’s about to float away.

Two fingers become three and then Jack is finally asking, “Ready, Kenny?” as Kent squirms and pants, knuckles already turned white from gripping the table.

“Fuck, please Zimms.”

Jack’s fingers slip away and Kent turns his head to watch Jack tear open a condom and roll it on, taking a moment to appreciate how fucking beautiful Jack looks. He’d say something about it, maybe, but Jack is already lining up and pressing inside and it takes everything Kent has not to sob. As it is, he buries his face in the crook of his arm and shakes and shakes with the thousand things he’s feeling and the way it doesn’t hurt at all—except for the pain in his heart that he swears has nothing to do with this or where he is or who he’s become.

“Jack,” Kent whispers, choking on all the other words, “Zimms.”

“Kenny.” Jack brings his hand to Kent’s mouth and snaps his hips and Kent bites down, sinks his teeth into the meat of Jack’s palm, and Jack coaxes, “Yeah, good.” He drops his head to rest against Kent’s shoulder and grunts against the overheated skin as they fuck.

Kent muffles his moans against Jack’s hand and rocks back into him, urging the pace faster, feeling the way the sweat makes their bodies slip against each other, the press of Jack’s chest along the ripples of his back.

“Not sure— _aah,_ Kenny—how long I’ll last,” Jack pants, his free hand still slick with lube and grappling for purchase on Kent’s hip.

Kent drops a hand down to his dick and starts stroking in time with Jack’s thrusts. He fights to keep his eyes open in the face of it all—the white hot bolts of pleasure, the fullness he feels as Jack moves inside him, the ache in his calves. Jack moves to mouth at Kent’s neck and God, fuck, he’s so close and he lifts his head to give Jack better access and—

Bitty is standing in the hallway. Kent is bent over the pool table with Jack balls deep inside him and his hand on his dick, and Bitty is standing in the hallway with his mouth hung open. He’s flushed from his face to his neck and the bulge in his boxer briefs isn’t exactly subtle, but his eyes—his eyes are rabbit-big and brown and thick with a numb terror that would break Kent’s heart if it was still whole.

Bitty flees before Jack can look up and Kent drops his head down to the table, forehead pressed hard against the wooden edge. He squeezes his eyes shut and doesn’t see a damn thing when he comes, sobbing against the hand at his mouth and fighting to breathe like all the air in the world followed Bitty down the hallway.

Jack comes soon after, stuttering Kent’s name into his ear and thrusting weakly until he’s spent, pressed up against every inch of Kent’s skin he can manage. They stay there panting, regaining their breath. Kent wonders if he’s paying for old sins or ones he hasn’t committed yet.

After his breathing settles, Jack pulls out and ties his condom off, looking around—Kent assumes for a trash can or some tissues or something, which’d be nice seeing as his hand is covered in come. Jack ends up disappearing into the kitchen and coming back with a handful of paper towels that he uses to help clean them both off.

“Shower or bed?” Jack asks, shimmying back into his underwear.

“Oh, Christ.” Kent pulls his own boxers back up and kicks out of his shorts, electing to throw on sweatpants instead. “Uh, bed, I guess?” He’s pretty sure he smells disgusting, but being awake for the extra thirty or so minutes sounds like hell at this point.

Jack hums his agreement and pulls Kent against his chest, then presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Alright.” He leaves an arm wrapped around Kent’s waist and tugs him down the hallway.

“Uh, wait—are we—all sleeping together?”

Jack hesitates outside the door and tilts his head to the side. “Um—I thought—I just wanted to cuddle with you both. Is that weird?”

 _Only like, the weirdest fucking most uncomfortable thing ever,_ Kent thinks. But Jack has these big puppy dog eyes and what the fuck is Kent supposed to say? “Uh. I guess not?”

“Okay.” Jack smiles, and kisses Kent’s temple this time. “I’m glad.”

When they slip through the door, Bitty doesn’t stir even though the light from the hallway shines right on his face. He’s curled on his side facing away from the door with his eyes screwed shut. Kent nudges the door shut with his foot as Jack crawls into the bed, slipping under the covers and nuzzling up against Bitty’s back.

Bitty mumbles and turns over, curling his body into Jack’s touch. He clings to Jack’s arm and buries his face in Jack’s shoulder with a shaky sigh. Kent digs his teeth into his lip and wills his feet to move towards the bed.

Jack holds up the covers for Kent to crawl underneath and kisses him lightly on the cheek, lips barely brushing against the skin, before he resettles against the pillows. The room is dark and Bitty has a window open so the curtains flutter with soft unnerving sounds as the fabric brushes against the panes. Kent tilts his head up to the ceiling and prays he won’t dream.

 

~*~

 

Kent wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone crying. Half-asleep, he actually has to check to make sure it’s not him. His cheeks are dry, but there’s a light on in the en suite and Jack is still in bed next to him, eyebrows furrowed like he’s concentrating really fucking hard on whatever he’s dreaming about.

So it’s Bitty, then, making these little gasping, sobbing noises in the bathroom that would almost be cute if they didn’t make Kent want to throw up—and then throw up again for good measure.

He doesn’t throw up, mostly because Bitty is blocking the way to the closest toilet. He takes a good look at Zimms, the way the dim early morning light casts his cheekbones in deep, sharp shadows and how pretty his lips are when they part like that because Jack still breathes through his mouth a little while he sleeps.

Kent brushes a careful hand across Jack’s forehead, feels the tickle of hair across his knuckles. He’s in bed with Jack and his heart should be so swollen it could burst and instead it feels like it could shrivel and die in his chest. Bitty sobs again and turns on the tap.

And that’s how Kent relearns a thing about himself he thought he already knew: he’ll do anything for Jack Zimmermann. Except, apparently, hurt Eric Bittle.

Kent slips out of bed carefully, flinching when Jack stirs and only moving again when he resettles, rolling onto his side facing away. _Poetic,_ Kent thinks dryly, and holds his breath until he makes it past Bitty in the bathroom and back out into the hallway. His shirt from yesterday is still on the floor near his bag; he slips back into it and shoves the rest of his things in as quickly as he can.

He locks the door behind him on the way out, just in case he’s tempted to turn around.

 

~*~

 

Kent finds a hotel fifteen minutes down the road—the same one the Aces always stay at when they’re in town. He trudges up to the room he rents, drops his duffel bag unceremoniously to the ground, and sinks onto the bed with a choking sound. There’s no going back, this time. There’s no fantasy where Zimms remembers how great they had it when they were kids, there’s no falling back together when they’re older and wiser and stitched up with years of therapy.

There’s Jack, asleep in his bed and a different crying blond kid who Kent will never match up to, for all that they’re the same, and there’s Kent in another hotel room alone. He’s spent maybe half his life in borrowed beds. What’s one more night?

Kent gets like five minutes of wallowing—he hasn’t worked up to the crying yet, which is kind of surprising but he’s just so fucking tired and tears take work—before the knock on the door.

Blinking, Kent just stares. It doesn’t—this doesn’t makes sense. Jack isn’t supposed to come for him. He’s not strong enough to leave again. It takes everything he has every time and he’s a used up husk of a person already and it’s not fucking _fair._ He’s got nothing left.

The knock comes again, louder this time. Kent gets up to answer it, almost in a trance. Ready to beg—but not sure for what—he pulls the door open and finds—

“Eric?” Kent splutters, staring at him in a dull kind of shock, the most he can work up, “What—how—?”

“I heard you leave—followed you in Jack’s car,” Bitty explains. He clears his throat and juts his chin a little. He looks determined and not nearly as fragile as Kent would’ve guessed, considering. “Can I come in?”

Kent steps away from the doorway to let Bitty inside even as he asks, “Why?”

“Good question,” Bitty mutters, mostly to himself as he steps out of his shoes like the polite little fucker that he is.

Louder, sighing—and there’s the tiredness Kent had expected, the soul-deep ache he’s feeling in his own chest—Bitty says, “Because—‘cause this isn’t your fault. Jack—Jack’s the one who fucked—he’s the one who fucked this all to hell and I—” As hard as he’s trying, Bitty is quivering apart. His lip is shaking and tears are welling in his eyes, and it always surprises Kent how easy it is for other people to cry. “I can’t let you—just because he—”

“I knew,” Kent blurts. Because—maybe he hates himself a little. More than a little, probably. Bitty’s mouth drops open like he’s about to ask a question, but Kent plows forward anyway. “He told me he had a boyfriend. I knew, and I fucked him anyway.”

Kent hears the crack of skin against skin before he feels the pain on his cheek. He doesn’t flinch.

Bitty brings the same hand that slapped Kent up to his mouth, like he’s surprised it happened. Maybe he is. Bitty doesn’t seem like a violent person.

“I’m sorry,” Bitty whispers through his fingers. His eyes are wide but there aren’t tears in them anymore.

“I deserve it.” Kent’s voice is hoarse. His throat is tight and it hurts to move.

Bitty shakes his head. He brings his hand up to Kent’s cheek, brushes cool fingers against Kent’s stinging skin. “Not what I’m sorry for.”

Kent doesn’t get a chance to ask what that means before Bitty kisses him. It’s soft, like he’s luring a wounded animal. Kent feels like one. Bitty’s lips taste like tear-salt and his tongue is bitter and stale with almost-morning breath and it hurts like a morphine needle.

Shaking, Kent brings his hands up to Bitty’s face and cradles it as he separates them. “What—?”

“I wanna know what it feels like—” Bitty pauses, voice soft and terrifying, to brush a thumb along the ridge of Kent’s cheek, and—oh—Kent is finally crying, “I wanna know what it feels like to hurt him. I’ll call him in the morning and tell him what I did and he’ll forgive me. And then I’ll know.”

They kiss again, and this time Bitty sinks his teeth into Kent’s bottom lip. He sucks back and presses up against Kent’s body and, Christ, Kent just fucking goes. He stumbles backwards until he’s pinned against a wall with Bitty’s thigh between his legs and a hand gripped in his hair just right, somehow, like it was always meant to be there.

“What’s that saying?” Kent asks, turning his face to the side to stall, “An eye for an eye makes everyone blind?”

Bitty just moves his mouth to Kent’s jaw, peppering sloppy kisses along the bone before winding up on his neck, just under his ear.

“Good,” he says decisively, and bites down. Kent leans his head back against the wall with a whimper.

There’s probably a hickey on Kent’s neck by the time Bitty lifts his head and kisses him again, something hungry and desperate in it now. Kent ruts his hips up into Bitty’s thigh and gets this perfect fucking moan in response so he does it again, with enough purpose to start getting himself hard. He can feel Bitty coming a little undone against him, kisses going erratic and his hands roving Kent’s body, grabbing at his ass and scraping nails up his back.

God, _god_ does Kent need—whatever this is. To be wanted, needed, used, doesn’t matter and maybe he can’t tell the difference anymore because it all hurts and pain feels like home.

Bitty is in pain too. It’s in his eyes and the tremble in his body and the way he says, “I want you to fuck me,” like it’s some kind of sacrament.

“I only blew Jack,” Kent answers. It feels like that matters.

They haven’t even taken their clothes off yet. Bitty plays with the hem of Kent’s t-shirt and his lips do something that could almost be considered a smile. “I still want you to fuck me.”

“Okay.” Kent breathes in deep and his lungs quiver, refuse the air. “Lube and shit’s in my bag.”

Bitty pulls away and strips out of his shirt on his way to the bed. It takes him a couple seconds to dig around and find a condom; Kent didn’t exactly pack neatly. In the meantime, Kent takes off his shirt and tugs at his sweatpants, fingers feeling clumsy and numb.

When he finally looks up and steps out of his boxers, Bitty is propped up on the bed, naked and stroking himself slowly. His lips are plump and kiss-bitten. He asks softly, “Wanna open me up?”

“Yeah, okay.” Kent crawls onto the bed and Bitty shifts backwards to make room for him to kneel between his thighs, still braced on his forearms to watch. The lube is cold on Kent’s fingers and he shivers before working one inside.

Bitty hums deep in his throat and throws his head back, golden hair flopping with the motion and catching in the lamplight. “Y-yeah, good. That’s—more.”

Ignoring him, Kent keeps his pace, stroking slowly. He presses a kiss to Bitty’s knee and then nips at the underside, smirking despite himself at the way Bitty jumps a little in response.

“Kent,” Bitty pleads, sinking off his arms to sprawl on his back and grip at the sheets. “I ain’t that fragile, c’mon.”

 _I am,_ Kent thinks, not really bitter but something, and slips another finger in anyway. He increases the pace, searching for Bitty’s prostate and pressing up against it with a smirk.

Bitty writhes fucking beautifully, hips hitching up and fucking back onto Kent’s fingers with a gratifying desperation. “Fuck, Lord, yes—do that again.”

“Christ,” Kent chirps, because his dick is painfully hard against his stomach and it’s not like he’s much less of an asshole when he isn’t out-of-his-mind horny anyway. “Where was all that sass earlier?”

He presses a third finger inside as Bitty growls, “Shut up, just— _fuck.”_

“Working on it,” Kent mutters, and Bitty kicks an erratic foot out at him with a snort. “Just saying—it’s a good look on you.”

That gets him an eyeroll in response, but—spread out on Kent’s hotel bed with his face screwed up in impatient pleasure is kind of the most _alive_ Bitty’s seemed all weekend and—Kent definitely doesn’t feel a sick sense of pride at that. There’s nothing warm blooming in his stomach when Bitty scrabbles at his arm to pull him over so they can kiss, Bitty’s mouth warm and open for him while the curve of his fingers draws out raspy moans. Because that would mean Kent is fucked. Even more than he already is in general, anyway.

Bitty pulls away, voice breathy, and says, “’M ready.”

Nodding, Kent pulls his fingers out and wipes them off on the bedspread, watching the way Bitty’s nose wrinkles in judgement at the action. It’s definitely not endearing. Like at all.

As Kent’s working extra lube onto his condom, Bitty climbs onto his lap and wraps surprisingly muscled arms around his neck. Kent teases, “Thought I was fucking you?” even though he’s already gripping the base of his dick to help Bitty ease down.

“Hush, I—” Bitty scolds, pausing with a low whine as Kent pops inside him—and fuck, he feels so fucking perfect it might be illegal in a couple states. “I like this position.”

“Not— _fuck,_ Christ, Eric—not complaining,” Kent clarifies, probably unnecessarily considering he’s pretty sure he’s already gone all dopey-eyed and his hands have gone up to grip at Bitty’s hips, face buried in the crook of Bitty’s neck to hide his expression.

Every time Bitty moves fire shoots up Kent’s spine, a sharp heat that rocks into his chest and singes his arteries. Words punch out of his throat, desperate curses and praises he doesn’t even remember right after he says them— _Christ, God, so good—I c-can’t—you feel so—make me—fuck, Eric—_

They’re pressed up against each other, writhing and grinding with Bitty’s hands in his hair and mouth hung open next to his ear, all wordless whines and moans that shake around in Kent’s brain and Kent can feel the muscles strain in Bitty’s thighs as he moves. It’s intimate and wild and tender and—not just fucking, not just about Jack. It’s words Kent hasn’t used for sex since he was a teenager, when he was confused and every bit as terrified as he feels right now, because—

“It’s not supposed to feel like this,” Bitty gasps against his skin, something raw and pained in his voice. “What are you doing to me?”

“I don’t—I can’t—I don’t know,” Kent answers, mouth hanging open uselessly while he scrambles to collect his thoughts because _Jesus, thank God, Bitty feels it too. He knows there’s something here._

Bitty shoves Kent back, down against the mattress, hands pressed against his chest to pin him in place. Kent stares up at him unblinking, hands falling away useless at his sides. Their eyes meet for a second, something flashing between them, before Bitty closes his and starts to ride Kent again with his arms braced for leverage as he rolls his hips.

It lasts for a minute, tops, before Bitty makes an exasperated sound and drops down onto his forearms, snapping their bodies back together like they’re made of fucking magnets and crushing their mouths in a kiss that’s mostly teeth. Kent moans and fucks up into him, roving his hands down Bitty’s back, his ass, before bringing one up again to hold him in place by the base of his neck, like he’s going to drown him with his tongue.

Bitty breaks away and pants, “This isn’t—fuck—I can’t—” He rolls to the side and yanks Kent on top of him, locking his legs around the small of Kent’s back and urging him deeper inside.

“I don’t know what you—fuck, Christ—what you _want,”_ Kent pleads, head bowed, forehead pressed up against Bitty’s in a physical plea, teeth dug into his bottom lip and wide eyes searching for something—anything—to explain the frustration in Bitty’s voice.

“I want—I thought this would—” Bitty cuts himself off with a kiss, tilting his head up to catch Kent by the mouth like something in the action will prove his point, “I thought this would—hurt more, or—I didn’t—you’re not—”

Kent thrusts in hard and Bitty’s words fall away into a moan that’s nearly a sob, eyes screwed shut in pleasure. When he regains his composure, he doesn’t try to finish his thought. Instead, he just grabs at Kent’s hand and drags it to his throat.

And, okay—it’s not like Kent hasn’t tried some kinky shit in bed before. It isn’t even the first time someone’s asked him to choke them. But this—he’s known Bitty for less than a day and an hour ago he was crying in a bathroom when he thought no one could hear and Kent’s never wanted to hurt anyone less in his entire miserable life.

“Sorry,” he whispers, fingers dragging slowly along Bitty’s throat as he pulls them away, “Um, no, sorry, I—I can’t? Fuck, Eric—Bitty, I—I can’t.”

Bitty tilts his eyes up to the ceiling, away from the gaze Kent is trying to get him to meet. His voice is wet and cold, cracking along the middle like ice pulled out of the freezer too soon. He tries to sneer, “Can’t you do anything right?” but it comes out more like begging.

Something shatters in Kent’s rib cage. He snarls and pulls out abruptly, flips Bitty over and shoves him down into the mattress by the shoulders when he thrusts back inside. Bitty fucking _keens,_ squirming and rocking back against Kent’s harsh rhythm.

Breathless, he gasps, “Yes, fuck—that’s it, sweetheart—good, c’mon, fuck me harder, honey—you—”

“Shut up,” Kent begs, “God, Christ, please shut the fuck up. _Please.”_ It feels like shards of bones are lodged in his chest, shrapnel sunk into his flesh ripping its way out with every word that falls from Bitty’s mouth, the sudden endearments, the sickening warmth.

Bitty ignores him. Maybe he didn’t even hear. “This isn’t—baby that’s it, right there—this isn’t how I thought—don’t stop, honey— _aah,_ so—good—I—Kent—”

“Please.” Kent drops his head down, presses his face into the pillow next to Bitty’s. “Please,” he says again, “please,” like the broken record he is.

Bitty whimpers, “Close—‘m close, Kenny—” and Kent comes like a gunshot, shouting something unintelligible into the pillow and snapping his hips forward so hard that Bitty yelps.

“Fuck, I— _fuck,_ sorry, c’mere,” Kent urges, rolling nearly-boneless onto his back and pulling Bitty against him on his side. He stubbornly pries Bitty’s hand away from his dick and jerks Bitty off himself, stroking his hand rapidly over the soft skin, panting into his sweat-slick shoulder.

“Y-yeah, tighter,” Bitty says, writhing against Kent’s side, back arched. He’s making these little choked out sobbing noises now and the angle’s kind of weird but Kent manages to slip two fingers back inside him. He mouths at Bitty’s neck, not quite managing to make it a kiss, and pumps his fingers faster and Bitty shudders when he comes, spilling over Kent’s hand with a soft cry.

They both lay still, curled up in silence except for the sounds of their labored breathing. Kent squeezes his eyes shut so tightly colors dance under his eyelids.

“I got come on your sheets,” Bitty says, and Kent can hear the wrinkle in his nose when he says it.

Laughing, Kent points out, “Not my sheets. C’mon, let’s clean up.” He pushes up off the bed—one-handed, to avoid adding to the amount of come on not-his-sheets—and ambles into the bathroom. Bitty grumbles something under his breath but follows, seizing a washcloth that he uses to clean off his stomach before he tosses it to Kent.

Kent shucks his condom off and tosses it into the trash, then cleans his hands on the cloth and rinses it in the sink. After Bitty heads back into the bedroom, Kent stands at the mirror and stares at himself in it. His eyes are clear and gray, a little red around the edges but steady. He keeps waiting for something to change in the reflection, for what they did to hit him and the face staring back at him to crumple. Nothing happens except for a vague twist in his stomach and a cough from the other room that startles him back to himself.

When Kent leaves the bathroom, he finds Bitty curled up under the covers in the bed, which—okay, not what he expected but whatever. And since Kent isn’t the one between the two of them who has somewhere else to go, he crawls right into bed too; if Bitty thinks that’s weird he can go back to his apartment and his—fuck—Jack.

“Um, so—” he starts, not really sure what he’s going for but feeling the need to fill the silence.

Bitty interrupts, kind of like he’s had the speech planned and Kent’s attempts at conversation aren’t appreciated, “You know, after it happened I spent a long time trying to figure out what you gave him that—that I didn’t. What I did wrong, or—what I wasn’t doing.”

Kent laughs despite himself. “I—thought the same fucking thing, about you.”

“He didn’t—” Bitty turns to him, startled, with big wide doe eyes like Kent’s spouting gibberish, “He didn’t cheat on _you._ You’re the one he—really wanted.”

All the bravado from before is gone, leaving Bitty looking vulnerable and cracked open. Kent wants to touch him, brush a hand across his cheek or put an arm around his shoulders. Instead, he just shakes his head and argues, “But he doesn’t—it was always just sex, basically. What you two have—”

“No, he—” Bitty’s voice cracks and he looks away, “He told me he’s in love with you. I thought you—he loves you.”

All the air punches out of Kent’s stomach in a noise that’s kind of between a laugh and a sob but also some third sound he’s not sure he’s ever made before.

“You’re lying,” he says, even though he knows there’s no reason Bitty would possibly—but it’s the only thing that makes sense because—because Kent has to _leave,_ and he can’t fucking do that if Jack loves him back. He can’t and he has to.

“Honey,” Bitty asks with a laugh, soft and sad, “don’t you think I wish I was?”

Kent breathes in until his lungs hurt. “Why’d you follow me?”

Bitty furrows his eyebrows defensively and starts, “I told you—”

“C’mon, we both know you landed on that plan after I pissed you off. You didn’t come here to—whatever that was.” Kent balls up the comforter in his hands to keep them from shaking. His vision is going blurry which means he’s probably gonna start crying again. Fucking perfect. Desperate, he pleads, “Why’d you have to—why couldn’t you just— _fuck_ —why couldn’t you let me leave?”

“Because he’d follow you,” Bitty whispers, his own eyes wet and lip trembling, “He’d—and I should hate him, I know I should, but I don’t and I can’t lose him like this. I c-can’t.”

Kent argues, “He wouldn’t. He’ll choose you, if he has to, I don’t—Christ, fuck—why’re you making me _do_ this? I tried—” he lets go of the comforter to fist his hands in his hair instead but the sharp pricks of pain do little to ground him, “I don’t—of course he chooses you. You’re—better. For him…and in general.”

Kent punctuates the statement with a vague wave of his hand. Bitty looks over at him and laughs in disbelief, maybe a little derisively, too. “Lord, you don’t know how great you are, do you?”

“Pot and kettle,” Kent mutters, and Bitty rolls his eyes. Bitterly, he asks, “I don’t—how the fuck can you say that to me? I’m—I’m just the piece of shit who fucked your boyfriend.”

“And I’m the pathetic boy who forgave him,” Bitty points out ruefully. He reaches out a tentative hand, teeth tugging at his bottom lip, and squeezes Kent’s shoulder. “I know what it’s like to realize you’ll do anything to have Jack Zimmermann.”

 _Almost anything,_ Kent thinks, but he keeps his mouth shut. Bitty’s hand is still on his shoulder and maybe he leans into the touch a little bit. Sue him. “You’re not pathetic, okay? You’re—a lot fucking stronger than I would’ve been. And—nice, Jesus Christ, so fucking nice, like—are you a real person?” Bitty laughs uncomfortably, but it’s a brighter sound than before so Kent keeps going, “And compassionate, and warm, and—cute and just like, easy to be around? I—yeah.”

Bitty smiles. It’s shaky, and his eyes are still big and sad, but it’s a real smile. He turns to face Kent a little more, his arm slipping farther around Kent’s shoulders as he does. “Well, Kent Parson,” he says slowly, with careful weight behind each word, “You’re brave, braver’n me, and confident and, um, sexy—and you’re funny, and real humble—which I was _not_ expectin’—and you—you care a lot more than you let on, about people you don’t gotta, like—like me.”

Kent can feel himself shaking. It’s—fucking weird. He’s not sure he’s ever really thought about himself, actively, as any of the things Bitty mentions. Well, except sexy, but that’s—not much when it’s the only thing you have. Now he’s shaking apart, like Bitty’s pulling away his scaffolding with every word.

It feels like he could crumble and Bitty wouldn’t even blink, just get to work on building him better the second time around.

“Thanks. Thank you, I—” Kent murmurs, but then Bitty nods encouragingly and something cracks in his chest. He surges forward and pulls Bitty into an embrace, buries his face in Bitty’s neck shaking and sobbing, and gasps out, “Fuck, sorry, I’m—I’m so sorry, for everything and I—”

Bitty’s arms go around his back and Kent realizes that Bitty’s trembling too, hiccupping out his words and trying not to fall back apart. “I know, I—I know that. And I—Kent, I f-forgive you.”

“Bitty—”

“Let me,” Bitty tells him softly, pulling away a little so he can look Kent in the eye, “Let me forgive you like I forgave him.”

Kent focuses on his breathing, the thump of his heartbeat, the singe of every nerve in his body firing against Bitty’s touch. He presses their foreheads together and drowns himself in the warm pair of brown eyes staring up at him.

“Okay,” Kent says. He shivers, hesitating just a little, and brings a hand up to cup Bitty’s cheek. “Yeah, okay.”

Bitty hums his relief against Kent’s lips, closing the distance between them in a soft kiss, gentle and sweet. When he pulls away, it’s with a little breathy laugh and a smile that Kent would bet good money is the one that made Jack fall in love.

“So what happened to wondering what was missing?” Kent asks, reclining against the pillows and fighting to control his breathing when Bitty curls up against him.

“You know,” Bitty muses thoughtfully, nestling his head against Kent’s chest, “I’m—not sure it’s about that, anymore.”

Tentatively, Kent slips an arm around Bitty’s waist. “I—then, what? You think—someone can really just love two people?”

“I dunno.” Bitty shrugs, his body shifting warm and snug against Kent’s. He pauses for a moment, his voice hushed against the soft whirl of the air conditioner, the creaks and moans of the hotel, and then ventures, “I think I could fall in love with you.”

Kent closes his eyes and pulls the covers up farther around them both to guard against the chill in the air. Bitty’s hair tickles against his jaw. “Yeah, I—me too.”

“Come back with me tomorrow,” Bitty urges, but he’s starting to sound drowsy. Kent checks the clock on the nightstand; it’s nearly three in the morning. “Not because—not just because I don’t want Jack to leave. Because—maybe it’d be nice if you stayed.”

“Maybe,” Kent agrees. He brings a hand up to Bitty’s hair, carding his fingers through it gently.

Bitty sighs contentedly. “Kenny?”

Kent’s breath hitches. “Yeah, Bits?”

“Don’t run away again.”

It’s not pain, the surge of emotion that seizes Kent’s chest, but it’s close. “Don’t cry at night and pretend everything’s okay.”

Bitty laughs softly, the corner of his mouth brushing against Kent’s skin. “I’ll try.”

Kent’s fingers still. He closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of the air conditioner clicking off, the rhythmic huffs of Bitty’s gentle breathing. “Yeah, me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love Kent Parson with every fiber of my trash heart. Come scream with me about him [on Tumblr! <3](http://yoursummerfrost.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Love the Player, Hate the Game](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12041469) by [darter_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darter_blue/pseuds/darter_blue)




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